AI and urban governance: from the perils of smart cities to Amazon Inc. urbanism
Research output: Contributions to collected editions/works › Chapter › peer-review
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Handbook on Public Policy and Artificial Intelligence. ed. / Regine Paul; Emma Carmel; Jennifer Cobbe. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024. p. 423-434 (Handbooks on Research on Public Policy).
Research output: Contributions to collected editions/works › Chapter › peer-review
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RIS
TY - CHAP
T1 - AI and urban governance: from the perils of smart cities to Amazon Inc. urbanism
AU - Antenucci, Ilia
AU - Meissner, Fran
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © Editors and Contributors Severally 2024.
PY - 2024/6/21
Y1 - 2024/6/21
N2 - The extensive deployment of commercial AITs is increasingly shaping urban environments and what was previously the realm of urban planning and governance. We highlight the importance of cities as testing grounds for proprietary and commercial AITs and the socio-political implications of such processes amidst tensions between the flattening gaze of the software and the multiple, irreducible realities of the city. To describe how AITs become part of urban planning and policies, we show how the AI promise of delivering better governance quickly turned into controversial socio-political effects. These include lack of transparency and democratic oversight, technocratic solutionism, and encoding of racial, gender, and class discrimination in algorithmic systems. We then draw on Amazon as a case study to illustrate how powerful commercial AITs are ever more frequently controlling operations crucial to urban life, such as logistics and security, and how they are thus affecting how cities function and are governed.
AB - The extensive deployment of commercial AITs is increasingly shaping urban environments and what was previously the realm of urban planning and governance. We highlight the importance of cities as testing grounds for proprietary and commercial AITs and the socio-political implications of such processes amidst tensions between the flattening gaze of the software and the multiple, irreducible realities of the city. To describe how AITs become part of urban planning and policies, we show how the AI promise of delivering better governance quickly turned into controversial socio-political effects. These include lack of transparency and democratic oversight, technocratic solutionism, and encoding of racial, gender, and class discrimination in algorithmic systems. We then draw on Amazon as a case study to illustrate how powerful commercial AITs are ever more frequently controlling operations crucial to urban life, such as logistics and security, and how they are thus affecting how cities function and are governed.
KW - AIT
KW - Amazon AI
KW - Logistics
KW - Mainstreaming
KW - Security
KW - Urban planning
KW - Politics
KW - Sociology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85207585039&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4337/9781803922171.00040
DO - 10.4337/9781803922171.00040
M3 - Chapter
SN - 978 1 80392 216 4
T3 - Handbooks on Research on Public Policy
SP - 423
EP - 434
BT - Handbook on Public Policy and Artificial Intelligence
A2 - Paul, Regine
A2 - Carmel, Emma
A2 - Cobbe, Jennifer
PB - Edward Elgar Publishing
ER -